Anketen, Louis

Louis Anquetin was born in the French city of Etrepani into a wealthy family. From early childhood, the boy became interested in painting and his parents, father George Anketen and mother Rose-Felicite Chauvet, strongly encouraged this hobby.

In 1872, Louis was enrolled in the Rouen Lyceum of Pierre Cornell , after which he enlisted in the 6th Dragoon Regiment, stationed in the city of Chartres .

In 1882, having completed his military service, Louis decided to become an artist and, having gone to Paris, began to study painting at Leon Bonn's art studio. Here he met Henri Toulouse-Lautrec , with whom he subsequently was friends for many years. In 1883, Leon Bonn was appointed professor of the Academy of Arts and he closed his studio. Anketen and Toulouse-Lautrec went to the workshop of Fernand Cormon , where they met and made friends with Emil Bernard and Vincent Van Gogh . Louis Anketen turned out to be a very capable student and Cormon considered him his successor.

In 1885, after meeting with Claude Monet, Anketen discovered " impressionism ". Following the questionnaire, the idea of ​​impressionism was adopted by the entire so-called “ Cormon group ”, formed from Toulouse-Lautrec , Eugene Bosch , Paul Tamier and Vincent van Gogh . However, in an effort to find his own style, Anketen did not abandon attempts to go beyond the "framework of impressionism."

In 1886, at the Grand Café Bouillon, Louis Anquetin became acquainted with Georges Seurat and his special manner of writing, called divisionism or pointillism .

A new style captivated the artist, but in 1887, together with Emile Bernard, they developed a new style of painting, which critic Edward Dujardin called cloisonism and which became the basis of pictorial "synthetic" symbolism . An additional impetus for the formation of a new direction in painting was the admiration that Anketen and Emil Bernard experienced at the exhibition of Japanese graphics organized by Vincent van Gogh in the Tambourine cafe in Paris .

The new style brought Anketen both fame and recognition. In 1889, Anketen took part in a large exhibition of works by famous artists ( Paul Gauguin , Emile Bernard , Louis Roy, Charles Laval ), organized at the Paris World Exhibition . In addition, in the same year, his paintings exhibited at the Les XX Brussels Exhibition received rave reviews.

In 1891, ten of the best works by Anken were exhibited at the Salon of Independents . All paintings, and especially Woman on the Champs Elysees by Night, were highly praised by critics.

In 1894, Anketen and Toulouse-Lautrec left for Belgium and Holland to study Dutch classical painting ( Rembrandt , Rubens and others). Anketen realized that the masterpieces created by the great painters were inconceivable without knowledge of anatomy and, for two years, from 1894 to 1896, studied anatomy and experimented with the technique of oil painting. By this time, most artists have already switched to pastel painting, as the oil painting technique has gone out of fashion and was considered too primitive. Louis Anketen thought differently: the rejection of the technique of oil painting, according to him, was explained by a lack of talent, a lack of knowledge in the field of anatomy and a misunderstanding of the basic principles of the oil painting technique itself. Thus, he actually refused to recognize contemporary painting and turned to classicism, which caused the outrage of most artists and the negative reaction of art critics. The artist devoted a significant part of his attention to the reconstruction of the lost painting techniques of the old masters and their return to modern painting. So, for example, Anketen suggested that Rubens' works were first applied to the canvas in black and white, and then they were already filled with paints. In 1901, his former teacher, Fernand Cormon , was given the task of creating murals at the Hotel de Ville de Tours and invited Louis Anquetin to create four panels on the northern wall of the hotel representing the great French - Balzac , Descartes , Rabelais and Alfred de Vigny . Unfortunately, in 1907, these panels were replaced by the work of the artist Francois Schommer. In 1924, Louis Anketen's book Rubens was published. The holder of the Order of the Legion of Honor Louis Anketen died in August 1932 with almost complete obscurity. In the first half of the 20th century, the work of Anketen served as samples for the manufacture of tapestries in specialized manufactories in France. Currently, the artist's works are exhibited in such famous museums as the Orsay Museum , Van Gogh Museum , Tate British Gallery.

• Émile Bernard , Louis Anquetin, L'Art et les Artistes, 1933.
• Frédéric Destrémau , Louis Anquetin le retour au métier, DEA de l'Université Paris I, 1990.
• Joan Cassell-Dassule , Louis Anquetin and The Origins of Synthetism, 1973.